1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to digital television data reception by computer systems, and more particularly to digital television data format conversion with automatic parity detection.
2. Description of the Related Art
The advent of digital television technology has presented significant opportunities for the computer industry. Computer systems are expected by many to join traditional consumer television products as mainstream devices for receiving digital television (DTV) signals. A DTV-enabled computer system will likely include a DTV receiver for receiving DTV signals.
While analog television signals have generally been homogeneous in data format, digital television has permitted various data formats of DTV signals. In industry today, for example, some equipment transmits a DTV data stream in a serial data format. Certain other equipment though has expected to receive a DTV data stream in a parallel data format. Also, serial DTV data streams outputted by equipment may or may not include parity data for error correction.
DTV data broadcasters will soon provide DTV data streams to DTV decoders within computer systems. A DTV data broadcaster may directly provide a serial DTV data stream to the DTV decoder. Alternatively, the DTV data broadcaster may provide a serial DTV data stream to a television tuner which then provides the serial DTV data stream to the DTV decoder. If the DTV data broadcaster intended a serial DTV data stream to be delivered directly to the DTV decoder, then the serial DTV data stream has not included parity data. If the DTV data broadcaster intended a serial DTV data stream to be transmitted over the air to a television tuner, then the serial DTV data stream has included parity data. The television tuner has used the parity data to perform the necessary error correction. The tuner typically provided an 8-bit parallel DTV data stream to the DTV decoder. While the DTV decoder has not utilized the parity data, the DTV decoder has expected the size of the DTV data stream to reflect inclusion of parity data. A DTV data stream without parity data has typically occupied 188 bytes, and a DTV data stream with parity data has typically occupied 204 bytes. If a DTV data stream including no parity data has been provided directly to the DTV decoder, the DTV decoder has not operated properly.
When a DTV data stream has been provided to a DTV decoder of a computer system, it has not been known beforehand whether the DTV data stream contained parity data.